Region Director Earl Nettnin (Desert Rats) called the meeting to order at 7:35 PM. The Pledge of Allegiance was recited and a moment of silence for the sick and departed was observed. Earl asked that we remember Bob Baker (a former PNW4WDA President who passed away February 18, 2010 at the age of 92. Bob was President two different times during our last 50 years.

Minutes: A motion was made by Doug Conner (Roamin’ Chariots) seconded by Curtis Richards (Peak Putters) to accept the minutes as printed. Motion passed.

Treasurer’s Report was given by Sande Nettnin (Desert Rats). No outstanding bills.

COMP Report: The Competition people were asked to participate in the Monster Truck shows in Tacoma, Portland and Spokane. The barrel races have become very popular so they were asked to be a part of the shows. These shows proved to be very successful. The prize winnings from Feld Motorsports at the Tacoma show allowed the Competition team to donate $2500.00 to the Lakewood Police Officers Guild in honor of the fallen officers; and $1000.00 to the PNW4WDA’s Scholarship fund. Since they had to travel a number of miles to the shows in Portland and Spokane the prize money was divided among the team members for travel expenses. Competition events are posted on the PNW4WDA’s web site.
The Peak Putters said they had been approached to help with a mud bog, rock crawl, obstacle course and drags at a couple of events, the first one would be the weekend of April 24th. They are not clear on just what the duties would consist of at this time, but were wondering if they could get additional help from clubs in Region 4 when they have more details if they feel they need it. The second one would be sometime during the summer at the fair grounds in Kennewick.
Dave Walters (Peak Putters) said there is a 400 mile Desert Race June 25-27 at Paisley, Oregon South East of Bend.

Membership: We still have a membership packet out; have not heard anything back from them.

Club Power/We Did It: Beth Ayer (Wolf Pack 4X4 & Piston’s Wild of Oregon) was appointed to the Board of Directors of the PNW4WDA at the March Board meeting as Club Power/We Did it. You still need to get your paper work into Gary Harting who is the Region 4 Club Power/We Did It person.

Future 4-Wheelers: Gloria Joralemon (Shindig Wheelers) has volunteered to take this on. We are still working on getting her all the information so she can get it up and running. Thanks Gloria for stepping up and taking this on.

Web Site: Rick White (Windy City Wheelers) our Web Master said he has to get to know the new software before he gets the site running smoothly.

PR: Kelda Hagemeier (Shindig Wheelers) said she had attended the Moonshiners Swap Meet and things went well. There were sign-ups and a lot of inquiries about our organization. Kelda said if you have an event you want to promote, she can help with that. Diana Stafford (Overbored Racing) was appointed PR person for the PNW4WDA at the March Board meeting. Diana will be working with all the PR persons in the regions.

LAND MATTERS:
Doug Conner (Roamin’ Chariots) said he had nothing new to report on Juniper Dunes.

TWIG meetings will start up again in April. Not sure why they cancelled the March meeting.

Ron Rutherford (Jeepin’ Nomads) reported things with DNR were pretty quiet up the valley. Ron said he had attended a meeting with the Ahtanum Forest Watch Group; they have improved their Forest Watch Patrol Report form. Another thing at the meeting was stated how important it is to turn in volunteer hours. Doug Rohn who is a Ridgerunner had spent several hours at the old lookout on Blue Slide in the Ahtanum area cutting wood, hauling gravel, etc totaling 200 hours. The DNR uses volunteer hours when applying for grants so it is important that we turn in these hours; it is for our benefit as well as DNR.
A recommendation from the Ahtanum Forest Watch Group was to have DNR put all their maps on their web site; so you can print your map before you go exploring. Ron is going to GPS an area of the Wenas where DNR wants to install a cattle guard instead of a gate. Ron is waiting for the snow to melt; this will take place probably sometime in April. The Wenas area is closed for recreation from December 1 to May 1; however, they allow user groups to go in to Cascade Park a month early with written permission and the understanding it would be cleaned up when they left. Ron said he would be attending the Wenas meetings for Shaun Rehfield (Ridgerunners) who is unable to attend them at this time.

Earl said he had received an e-mail from Mark Mauren (DNR) stating what volunteers can do to keep DNR recreation areas open. We CAN help build and maintain trails under the direction of the DNR professional staff; participate in forest watch programs providing education and outreach to the public and report suspicious activities to law enforcement; act as campground hosts; perform light maintenance and repairs in campgrounds under the direction and guidance of professional staff and serve on recreation planning committees. Volunteers CANNOT legally do the following: make contractual agreements; apply for permits; take enforcement action; make decisions about safety and liability; make decisions that are in the best interest of the state trust lands or determine priorities for work projects based on safety, liability, and available resources. If you have questions or concerns contact Mark at mark.mauren@dnr.wa.gov.
The latest news on legislation: HB 2480 died in the Senate. HB 2617 Eliminating 78 certain boards and commissions including the NOVA Committee. On January 26th a substitute bill was introduced removing 31 from further consideration; one of these was the NOVA Committee. So if we get our NOVA funds back this committee is still intact. SB 5069 - Relating to recreational liability on public and private lands, failed to make it out of committee and was transferred to the X File. (NOTE on X-Files) these bills by Resolution can be re-introduced in the next legislative session. Also SB 6274 to have balanced recreation representation – motorized and non-motorized - received a second reading but failed to make it out of committee and was transferred to the X-File. SB 6444 Supplemental Operation Budget (status – there is no provision in the supplemental budget to restore NOVA funds). However, State Parks has not spent any of the funds due to the law suit filed by WOHVA and NMA.
Now is the time to nominate your favorite motorized Recreation Trails Project (RTP) for an award. The awards will be presented in Washington D.C. during the Great Outdoors Week of June 7-13, 2010. A nomination form can be downloaded at http://atfiles.org/files/doc/CRTawardNomination2010.doc. If you have questions contact Duane Taylor Director of Federal Affairs at (703) 416-0444 or send him an e-mail at dtaylor@mic.org. The form and any supporting materials, including pictures, should be returned by April 16, 2010 to the Chair of the Coalition’s Awards Committee, 1235 South Clark Street, Suite 600, Arlington, Virginia 22202.
May 1st is the Cle Elum V-Team Volunteer Awards Banquet at the Tom Craven Conference Room at the Cle Elum Ranger Station, 803 West 2nd Street, Cle Elum, WA. Agenda: pre-meeting from 10 – 10:45 AM open house and lunch from 11 AM to 12:30 PM; a year in photos and video presentation 12:30 – 1 PM; award ceremony 1 – 2 PM. RSVP to Mikki Douglass at threedouglass@yahoo.com.
Rock Crawl is into the Environmental stage so it is still going at government speed.
Don and Carol Jensen the PNW4WDA’s IAD #1 & #2 (Inter Association Directors) have put out information that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was directed by Congress to evaluate the use of OHV recreation on federal lands looking at USFS, BLM and National Park Service lands. The results were surprisingly positive. All in all, the report highlights issues and concerns that we, the motorized recreation community, have been saying for the past few years, it may even be useful to refute statements by those opposed to motorized recreation.
Nothing new has come out on the Forest Revision Plan we were to have heard something in March, but it’s still early in March. We are waiting notification for the public comment period. The Motorized Travel Management Plan was to be announced in March and we are waiting for that too.
OLD BUSINESS:
Report on Winter Convention: The Spanaway Moonshiners did a really great job hosting the event.
The history displays were wonderful and everyone seemed to really enjoy visiting with people they had not seen in years. Several past Presidents spoke about things that occurred during their time in office.
Angie Marek (Spanaway Moonshiners) was elected PNW4WDA President for 2010. The minutes from the business meeting are printed in this month’s Tri-Power.

Trail Jamboree: Sid & Kelda Hagemeier (Shindig Wheelers) Trail Jamboree Co-Chairmen were not present but they asked that we let you all know that registration online is full. They do have a waiting list so if you are interested in signing up for that, you may get lucky and still get in. Plan to attend the cleanup at Jim Sprick Park on April 16-18. Saturday the 17th cleanup begins about 9 AM. There will be a meeting for Jamboree hosts in the afternoon probably about 3 PM. Hobo Stew will be served about noon, so please bring, something i.e. vegetables to add to the stew no more than 2 cups, (cleaned and cut up ready to add to the stew). The Region will provide meat balls, rolls, butter, spoons and napkins. A pot luck will be held under the covered patio about 6:30 PM.

NEW BUSINESS:
Discussion on the property in the Lind area that Gary deMoss a former Oly 4X4 member wants to develop into an OHV park if enough interest from the PNW4WDA members is there. Gary wants to be able to hold events like rock crawls, barrel races, camping etc. When the property is paid for Gary would deed it to the PNW. Some questions we had were: has he been through the county commissioners and have everything in writing so that we could have events there, also water is a big concern. Is the land subject to this kind of activity? Please take this to your clubs and see if your club is interested in participating with this project, or would they attend an event there. Write your comments down and bring to our next Region meeting. After the PNW4WDA Board of Directors has a chance to review all the comments, a field trip would be in order to check out the site before bringing it back to the delegation for recommendations from the Board on what our involvement might be.

Leon Preddie (Desert Rats) asked about the possibility of changing the September Region 4 meeting because of an activity that would prohibit the Desert Rats delegates from attending the meeting. Since this would affect only 2 members trading or changing the meeting date or place would not be feasible.

CLUB REPORTS:
Desert Rats: some went to Winter Convention – looking into having a run to Kellogg, Id.
Roamin’ Chariots: had nothing to report.
Jeepin’ Nomads: went to Winter Convention and had a good time. February 20th the club had a run to LT Murray and had a good time. They had a booth at the Moonshiners Swap Meet in Puyallup March 7th.
Peak Putters: had a run to the Slab ORV area with the All Wheelers Off Road Club, went to the Juniper Dunes on March 7th, they have plans for a GEO Cash run on March 20th, two runs are planned to the Ahtanum area April 3rd and April 17th. They have two new candidates. On March 27th they will be at John Dam Plaza in Richland to assist with the Arc of the Tri-Cities demonstration. This is a non-vehicle run.

WORK PARTIES AND EVENTS SCHEDULED
1. March 27, 2010 Slab clean-up hosted by All Wheelers Off Road Club & ORV Trail Watch - meet in the main parking area 10 AM (contact Clay Graham)
2. April 17, 2010 Trail Jamboree clean-up at Jim Sprick Park (contact Hagemeier’s)
3. April 24, 2010 Moses Lake Sand Dunes Clean-up (contact Dave McMains)
4. May 1, 2010 Beverly Sand Dunes Clean-up hosted by All Wheelers Off Road & ORV Trail Watch meet in the main parking area 10 AM Camping too (contact Clay Graham).
5. May 1st - V-TEAM Appreciation party-festivities start at 10 AM in Cle Elum.
6. May 22 – 27, 2010 Liberty work party (contact Dale Neuman)
7. July 7th – 11th, 2010 Trail Jamboree
8. July 24, 2010 Ahtanum ORV Trails clean-up – Ahtanum Sno-Park 10 AM camping hosted by All Wheelers Off Road Club & ORV Trail Watch (contact Clay Graham).
GOOD OF THE ORDER:
Doug Conner thanked the Region for the card we sent him when his father passed away.
Marcella Larson has been diagnosed with cancer. Her daughters Debbie and Diana are taking her to Hawaii for a week, they will leave this next Tuesday; when they return she will begin treatment for cancer.

Door Prize: provided by Ron Rutherford was won by Doug Conner.

THE NEXT TWO MEETINGS FOR REGION 4 WILL BE:
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 at Standard Battery in Moses Lake, WA.
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 at Magic’s Pizza in Selah, WA.

In the minutes there is mention of the Webmaster working towards the R4 webpage. Is that site operational? If so how about an address. If not do you have a timeline? Just wondering cause the old site did have useful info.

In the minutes there is mention of the Webmaster working towards the R4 webpage. Is that site operational? If so how about an address. If not do you have a timeline? Just wondering cause the old site did have useful info.

Don't Know, Rick White (Windy City Wheelers) is our Region 4 Web Master, you need to check with him. Last word we had was he was going to have to get some new soft ware as the one he was using was not compatible with what we have. Sande